Republicans and Democrats in Washington have decided to focus on
the year 2002 to balance the budget. Many economists say this is
shortsighted. They point out that regardless of whether Congress and
the President succeed in balancing the budget by then, structural
problems in entitlement programs remain that will cause the deficit
to re-emerge shortly after 2002 and cause severe economic problems
for Americans.

Nonetheless, network reporters have chosen to focus on the year
2002 with the politicians and ignore the fiscal tidal wave to hit
shortly thereafter.

MediaNomics analysts reviewed every story on ABC's
World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, CNN's
World Today, and the NBC Nightly News during February
about President Clinton's proposed 1998 federal budget. There were
16 such stories. Not one mentioned the long-term entitlement
problems left unaddressed by President Clinton's budget.

All of them, instead, concentrated entirely on the year 2002.

Wyatt Andrews, on the February 9 CBS Evening News, said
the President's blueprint is "a budget plan that promises lower
federal taxes, cuts in spending, and a balanced budget in five
years, and that's the proposal from the President, a Democrat."
According to Andrews, "There is a document on the table now that
balances the budget in five years, which is what both sides say they
want. Show me the money, Washington style, is about to begin in
earnest."

NBC's Tom Brokaw, on the February 6 Nightly News,
reported that "according to the President's calculations, it would
be a balanced budget by the year 2000, and there would even be a
surplus by 2002."

"CNN's Carl Rochelle has some numbers you'll be interested in,"
promised CNN's Linden Soles on the February 5 World Today.
Would these be numbers explaining the explosive growth of
entitlements in the next decade? No. "President Clinton will propose
an ambitious $1.7 trillion budget that the White House believes will
not only balance the budget over the next five fiscal years,"
Rochelle declared, "but will result in a $17 billion surplus by the
year 2002."

The matter of honor was brought up by ABC's Peter Jennings, on
the February 2 World News Tonight, who said the President
had "called on Republicans to reach an honorable compromise with him
and balance the federal budget in the next five years."
Correspondent John Donvan reported that "in fact, the President's
plan would balance the budget, but not until the year 2002, if his
calculations are correct."

ABC's Robert Krulwich then reported on proposed cuts in
discretionary spending: "The dirty little secret here is they don't
have to decide which programs to cut this year. They can do that
next year or the year after."

But is that Washington's only dirty little budgetary secret? Not
according to economists. "Without entitlement reform," says Patrick
Fleenor of the Tax Foundation, "the deficit will rapidly rise to
levels that could threaten the economic well-being of Americans
during the early part of the next century."

Fleenor points out that the baby boom generation will begin
retiring late in the next decade and become eligible for Social
Security and Medicare. "Even under the most optimistic assumptions,"
Fleenor observes, "if the federal government attempted to meet these
demands it would have to raise taxes to unprecedented levels or go
deeply into debt. In either case the economy would likely falter and
the economic well-being of Americans could be forever jeopardized."

President Clinton's budget doesn't deal with this impending
crisis, Fleenor argues, but reporters aren't interested in any
budget problem beyond the year 2002.